LOS ANGELES, CA, May 7, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A sitcom featuring a gay couple and their adopted daughter was honored last week by Catholics in Media (CIMA), a group which purports to recognize movies and television shows that “[make] clearer the Word of God” and “help us better understand what it is to be part of the human family.”

The organization presented its annual Television Award to Paul Corrigan and Brad Walsh, executive producers of the popular ABC show “Modern Family,” at an Awards Brunch held April 29th at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles.

Corrigan and Walsh’s comedy show about divorced and remarried Jay Pritchett and the families of his two adult children has won 11 Emmy awards.

The gay couple on the show, Mitchell Pritchett and his partner Cameron, are the “fathers” of an adopted Chinese girl named Lily. In one controversial episode, two-year-old Lily, played by child actress Aubrey Anderson-Emmons, appears to use the “F” word. Although another actor on the show later revealed that she had actually said “fudge,” a “bleep” sound as she spoke deliberately made it appear as if she had used profanity.

According to the script from the CIMA awards program, which was e-mailed to LifeSiteNews, the show reflects “all the shapes, sizes and variations in today’s non-traditional families,” and demonstrates that “the cookie cutter mold of man + wife + 2.5 kids is a thing of the past.”

The organization acknowledged that the award was a controversial one, noting that they had received “voicemails and e-mails from around the country criticizing our choice,” but claimed to be following the example of Christ, who “opened his arms to everyone, embracing all who came to Him, condemning no one.”

“He was catholic with a small ‘c,’ and universal, and we believe He’d have wanted His Church to be the same,” reads the script.

In comments to Catholic News Service, CIMA founding member Barbara Gangi, said this was not the first “questionable, even controversial” award the organization has presented, and indicated that there were controversial figures “even among our own group.”

The event also honored Martin Scorsese’s movie Hugo. According the CNS, a statement from Scorsese was read at the event by the film’s visual effects supervisor, Robert Legato, who received the award on his behalf.

Alluding to a previous controversy that the organization had been embroiled in, Scorsese thanked CIMA for “rallying around” his heterodox 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ, which depicts a romantic relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

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